HMS Melampus (1785)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Melampus.

Detail from the painting by Bristol artist Chris Woodhouse of the 36-gun Bristol-built frigate HMS "Melampus", commissioned and purchased in 1990 by Bristol City Museum
Detail from the painting by Bristol artist Chris Woodhouse of the 36-gun Bristol-built frigate HMS Melampus, commissioned and purchased in 1990 by Bristol City Museum
History
Great Britain
NameHMS Melampus
Ordered17 April 1782
BuilderJames Martin Hillhouse, Bristol
Laid downDecember 1782
Launched8 June 1785
Honours and
awards
FateSold to Dutch Navy in June 1815
Netherlands
NameHNLMS Melampus
AcquiredJune 1815 by purchase
General characteristics [3]
Class and type36-gun fifth-rate frigate
Tons burthen94724/94 (bm)
Length141 ft (43.0 m)
Beam38 ft 10 in (11.8 m)
Draught13 ft 11 in (4.2 m)
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Complement270
Armament
  • Upper deck: 26 × 18-pounder guns
  • QD: 8 × 9-pounder guns + 4 × 18-pounder carronades (replaced by 32-pounder carronades in June 1793)
  • Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns + 4 × 18-pounder carronades (planned but never fitted)

HMS Melampus was a Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate that served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She captured numerous prizes before the British sold her to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1815. With the Dutch, she participated in a major action at Algiers and, then, in a number of colonial punitive expeditions in the Dutch East Indies.

  1. ^ "No. 20939". The London Gazette. 26 January 1849. p. 239.
  2. ^ "No. 20939". The London Gazette. 26 January 1849. p. 243.
  3. ^ Winfield (2008), pp. 140–1.